Wikipedia

Okay, so I'm pretty sure that all of you know what Wikipedia is. (If you don't for some reason...Wikipedia.org) Anyways, I've been hearing many stories from different people who've said that their teachers don't allow them to use Wikipedia as a resouce for projects and stuff because they think it's 'overly-biased' (as my teacher puts it..).
Personally, I think it's a pretty useful website even though many of my school's teachers don't want us using it. What do you guys think?

Dad (an english teacher) and mom (a college proffesor).. both hate it when students use wiki as a resource... Because they are created by the public.

However.. there was a recent article on ABC (I don't have it right now.. I'll look later).. That states otherwise.. and wiki may actually be a good resource.

Who kows.

I find it to be a great resource. It's so informative.

And besides, all the information on it can be found elsewhere as well, it's just all in one place.

It's actually pretty handy. I like it ok, though it's not always dead acurate. I do believe that the teachers in our school dont care, honestly. I've never heard any of them complain about it. ^__^

its a site that anyone can edit the information on... that pretty much answers your question. Anyone can put whatever they want on there. Editors don't catch everything. i wouldn't call it biased... more or less inaccurate at times.

Yes, it can be inacurate at times because it is produced by the public and editor's aren't perfect, but I think it's pretty nifty. You can find a lot of facts on there that are correct.

It's always good to look other places than wikipedia as well.

Wikipedia is a good place to start research. It can link you to other sites or spur an interest for you to research the topic further. For quick news on tv shows or movies I would say it's good, but when researching a massive school project I think you'd be better off finding accurate information in books, or 100% credible sites, which admittedly are hard to find.

I think it's an excellent source, even though it can be edited by the public. One example is when the Trav Demsey entry was edited, I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was a joke, saying that he was a robot created by Chris Cheney and Scott Owen when they couldn't find another drummer, and when he left, Scott created Andy Stachan out of clay.

Obviously thats just someone having a bit of fun, but I've seen entries where the information is obviously wrong, but if I do use it for an assignment, I don't use it unless the sentence or paragraph I'm using has been referenced.

I take wiki with a grain of salt but for correct info I always head to an online encyclopedia

It can and tends to be trustworthy at times, though I have noticed other times that their info is inaccurate and such. No one is perfect, sure. It's edited by basically anyone who feels like typing whatever in.
Biased? Perhaps to an extent, but only on ocassions that deal with a term that whoever plays with wiki feels about the term I would guess.
Biased by the actual editors? Probably not. They have standards to maintain and all that.

When you searched for Croatia in the english wiki it turned out that Croatia was a nazi country cause or flag had the usual red-white squares and a swastika. They fixed it now though. Its not that trusty, but ok.

I think most of Wikipedia is good material, I for one have used it numerous times.
Personally I've never had problems like finding false information mainly because I don't copy everything off it, but just use the basic info to get me started for essays and other work. It shouldn't be taken for granted, but I believe most of it is pretty reliable.

I trust wikipedia like I trust CNN

Someone was tampering with articles on wikipedia today. We're working with motion in physics, and we were researching about it. The article on measuring motion had been edited to include informatiob about how to measure motion in anal sex based on screams. Lovely thing to run across in science class.

Kurtni:

Someone was tampering with articles on wikipedia today. We're working with motion in physics, and we were researching about it. The article on measuring motion had been edited to include informatiob about how to measure motion in anal sex based on screams. Lovely thing to run across in science class.

that's so awesome

Wikipedia is alright, most of the time.
It's edited by the public, so people put dumb stuff where it doesn't belong a lot.
So sometimes, you just have to go with your gut when using Wikipedia.
But other than that, there's nothing wrong with it.
You also get information a lot faster than when using Google or other search engines like that.

Wikipedia just groups all the stuff you find through google. Its easier in way, but its always better to use other sources as well. Encyclopedias, government websites, etc.

Kurtni:

Someone was tampering with articles on wikipedia today. We're working with motion in physics, and we were researching about it. The article on measuring motion had been edited to include informatiob about how to measure motion in anal sex based on screams. Lovely thing to run across in science class.

What grade are you in? And did the teacher see?

Sooo other websites can put out false information that can't be changed, but anything false on Wikipedia can easily be changed. So what's wrong with that? So long as they note the sources, you've got two things that say it's correct. PLUS they have moderators so that anything put in by people being stupid gets changed.

It kind of depends what you're looking up. If you type in George Bush you might get some bullshit opinions of some dude in New Mexico about how Bush is Jesus re-encartanted. Or you could get a good picture of good ol' george (i dunno)

my english and history teachers banned it because apparently someone replace some pope with a picutre of Attilla the Hun and no one noticed for mounths. And also Steven Colbert encourged everyone to change the elephant pages to see they're population trippied in 2006 (not true, but lotsa people did it)

Also I read in Time Magazine that all the US Congressmen were barred from wikipedia because they kept changing other congressmens wiki sites to say bad things about them (which is kinda funny)

But since this wikipedia has cleaned up a bit. they give you a notice if the article is opinonated or biased. they also tell you if it needs "cleaning up" or sources. Another thing is a good wikipedia article has all the sources cited so if you find some good information thats true just click on the citation and use that for your source.

For the most part though, wikipedia has cleaned up alot. and for history no one is going to go into a page on the September Massacre from the Frech Revolution because no one would really do that. so if you read it to study and it sounds reliable then use it (its how i got a B+ in history)